I met Mark Souder once back in 1989 or 1990. I can't remember which...

[WCGreen]

I was working at a radio station in Fort Wayne and he came in to talk with the news director. They had me come in to meet him because even though I was an Ohio voter and an avowed Democrat, I had been involved in politics in my earlier life so they wanted me to listen to what he had to say.

He was pleasant and talked in the platitudes of a man well trained in staying the course. But he also wasn't afraid to talk about moral issues. Now I had always found these issues to be meant more for the pulpit and not the political arena. He frightened me, somewhat, and I remember being reminded of that WKRP episode where Carlson stood up the moral majority and refused to not play a song that had this particular moralist upset.

Souder wasn't at all my cup of tea. In fact I didn't want him even close to the dining room table. But I knew, after splitting my time between Fort Wayne and Cleveland for almost two years, that he was probably a fit for the people of Fort Wayne. That was when I knew for sure I didn't want to settle down in Fort Wayne. It wasn't for me.

During this time I had been flirting with the Green Party, right around the 20th anniversary of the first Earth Day. I saw how kookie some of the Greens could be. I worried that they would marginalize themselves even more than they were by adopting theater over substance. They didn't disappoint. It was a shame because there were some very well intentioned people, people who could have helped the Democratic Party in it's time of need that were made even more cynical because of the ineffectiveness of the Green movement.

I was in a state of flux by then. On those long trips back to Cleveland from Fort Wayne I listened with growing alarm as the noise on the AM dial started to get more virulent. I listened to Rush back before he was the big Kahuna he is now. He had strung together a whole mess of radio stations by giving them what was in essence free talent for three hours of usually dead time in the afternoon. All the stations had to do was give up a few spots of time per hour. It was a win win for the struggling mom and pop radio stations on line in places like Carey or Findley, Ohio. Remember, this was way before the Duopoly laws that prohibited the concentration of radio signals in a market were changed.

All I could think of after meeting Souder and listening to Rush and watching the Green's dance about the environment was that the left in this country was in for a rude awakening.

I was right. I remember bringing up Limbaugh's name at a Green Party event where there were probably 250 people attending. They laughed about him, said he wouldn't last and dismissed his influence as a fad.

Well, we know how that ended.

The point is Souder was a good fit for Fort Wayne, disguising his racism and class-ism by over emphasizing "good old fashioned Family Values". He continued to pontificate about conservative values even as more and more companies left Indiana. He was a big one to blame Organized Labor for the troubles plaguing the growing rust belt.

It's good to see him out of the congress. It's good to see him resigning. At least in this point, he is staying true to his word.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. He didn't stay true to his vows...

Which is unfortunate. I guess I'd call him a typical Republican hypocrite.

He talks about family values while he's busy ignoring/undermining them.

[704wipes]

2. Only quitting because he was about to be caught

If what happened in a state park stayed in a state park, then he still would be in Congress and
waxing his tent pole over at the park.